App-running fridge gives us a view into a future filled with needy, time-sucking gadgets

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An internet-connected, app-filled refrigerator seems like a great idea, right? It could track your food, display your calender, play music, and alert you to breaking news — seriously, these are all things that the $3500 Samsung RF4289 can do — but the day I see a memory card warning on my refrigerator is the day that I seriously reconsider where and how I am spending my free time.

Sure, the memory card issue displayed above was my fault — I was trying to pull images from a memory card that wasn’t present — but it got me thinking about networked washing machines and Twitter-enabled fridges. Are these cool devices? Sure. Do they have some reasonable usable scenarios? Yeah, why not, I could see listening to Pandora while making dinner. But, honestly, how much utility are you getting out of the 8-inch LCD screen? Is it really worth the time that it takes to drop images on it, load your Twitter account, customize your news feed, and sync your calendar?

I tend to embrace technology on any and all platforms, but that does not mean we should accept technology for its own sake. Is a refrigerator the right place for my apps? Is it where I should invest time curating my vacation photos? Is the (rather huge) premium I pay for an LCD-equipped smart fridge worth it compared to what a tablet, digital picture frame, or touch-enabled all-in-one might cost me? Each of us will have to answer that for ourselves, but these are questions worth asking.

After all, it’s nice to think that these “smart” appliances are pure upside, that their apps will stop us from wasting food and missing meetings, but one could just as easily ask for a moment of peace when they are trying to make some eggs on Sunday morning. Part of integrating technology into our lives is knowing when to disconnect, as opposed to having it hum constantly in the background to the point when we simply can’t take another tweet, alert, or update.

So, internet-connected smart appliances: sign of technological democratization and advancement or harbinger of the fall of Western civilization?